Every day at the same hour he passed the house, leaning on a cane. When the sun was bright he stepped along quickly, with an alert carriage of the head; but there were cloudy days when his step was slow and feeble, and even his smile lost some of its usual charm.
"Hello, little girl," he said, in a ponderous fashion, the first time that he saw me perched on the gate. "Hello! Hello! Hello!"
The hellos reached a long distance, and grew very gruff at the end, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and he had a beautiful bright star on his watch-chain, with which I longed to play.
"My name is Rhoda," I said, in a burst of confidence. "I live here in this house. I was six years old yesterday."
"Were you!" he replied, evidently much impressed. "That's very old, very old."
He went on slowly down the block, but when he turned on his way back, he stopped again at the gate to discuss my age.
"Six, was it?" he questioned. "Well! Well! Perhaps you can tell me what time it is."
I shook my head, with a fascinated look at the gleaming star.
"But you don't need a watch," he answered. "See here."
He stooped down, painfully, grasping the fence for support, and picked the snowy seed-ball of a dandelion plant. Then he straightened up, slowly, and blew at the feathery toy.
"One, two, three, four, five! Five o'clock. Time for the old major to go in out of the damp."
Then he turned away from me, and went on up the street, his cane digging little holes in the path, and he himself forgetting all about the child whom he had left still perched on her gate. I had not entirely passed from his memory, however, for when he came to his own gate far in the distance, he took off his hat, and gallantly waved it to me before he went in out of the damp.
"Mother, I love the old major!" I said one day.
"What major?" my mother asked, looking up from her work with a smile.
She was making small ruffled skirts and aprons with pockets. She could make the most beautiful things, all out of her own head.
"What major? Why, my major. Mother, has the old major any little girls or boys that I could play with? Oh, I should so like to play with his little girls and boys!"
"Major Daniel Clark hasn't any little girls or boys. He lost them all, dear. He is a very lonely man."